


Field Day

by nightbloomingcereus



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Field Day, Fluff, Footnotes, Getting Together, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, M/M, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Three-legged Race, Trust Falls, and various other ridiculous field day activities, angels and demons in sportswear, author is working out deep-seated resentment at having to participate in Field Days in the past, corporate-mandated fun and games, the mortifying ordeal of running a three-legged race with your dearest adversary and secret crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28090848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbloomingcereus/pseuds/nightbloomingcereus
Summary: Welcome to the First Annual Heaven and Hell Field Day!  There will be trust falls, a three-legged race, and all manner of corporate-mandated fun and games – what could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Beelzebub/Gabriel (implied), Dagon/Uriel (implied), Hastur & Ligur (Good Omens)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 101
Collections: Good Omens OTP Prompts Event Works





	Field Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Aziraphale and Crowley trying to do a three-legged race", for the OTP-Prompts event over at [GO-events](https://go-events.tumblr.com). Thank you to all the lovely members of the GO-events discord for brainstorming and cheerleading! <3

The Archangel Gabriel descended to Earth, accompanied by the triumphant fanfare of celestial horns, in a brilliant flash of violet lightning, before the assembled hosts of Heaven and Hell.

Gabriel was dressed in a dove-grey, baby-soft sweatsuit and blindingly white trainers, accessorized with a violet-and-white striped terrycloth sweatband around his forehead and a shiny metal whistle on a matching violet lanyard around his neck. He looked like the face of a campaign for workplace wellness and clean living[1], or perhaps one for very expensive, very impractical[2], dry-clean-only workout gear.

The aforementioned hosts of Heaven and Hell were milling about in a damp, grassy field in a nondescript suburb somewhere south of London. With the exception of Gabriel himself, everyone looked none too happy to be there. For one thing, it was a typical December day, grey and chilly and damp. For another, they'd been told when they arrived that they should mingle and get to know one another. This had predictably failed to happen after a couple of bumbling, halfhearted attempts at introductions by the younger and more naïve of those present. Instead, they were all currently standing around awkwardly in two large, mostly homogenous clusters that were further divided into small cliques almost exclusively by department.

Several feet to Gabriel's left, to the tune of furious buzzing, a swirling, inky cloud of bluebottle flies emerged from the muddy earth and resolved into the supremely unimpressed form of Lord Beelzebub, Prince of Hell. Beelzebub was dressed much as they always were, in a black morning suit with fishnet socks, numerous medals and ribbons, and a bronze silk sash. The only concession they'd made to the location and dress code was that they'd swapped their customary oxfords for a pair of lethal-looking steel-toed combat boots that purported to be resistant to oil, fat, acid, petrol, and holy water[4]. The massive fly perched on top of their head, which was regarding Gabriel disdainfully with every facet of its enormous compound eyes, was also wearing combat boots, three tiny pairs of them.

"Welcome!" boomed Gabriel, punching the air several times enthusiastically. "Welcome, Angels and Demons, one and all, to the First Annual Heaven and Hell Field Day! I look forward to a day chock full of Team Building and Friendly, Non-Lethal Competition!"

Beside him, Beelzebub rolled their eyes and added, "The non-lethal part is not a suggestion. Unfortunately. If you require further incentive, we have instituted a new industry-wide standard of a three-year mandatory waiting period for applications for new corporations outside of emergency combat dispensations."

"We are meeting on neutral ground – Earth – and as a gesture of goodwill—"

"Ill will."

"Ahem. As I was saying, today's activities are meant to build bridges and foster cooperation between our respective teams, and therefore Lord Beelzebub and I have mutually agreed that there shall be no use of holy water or hellfire today."

"We remind you that until such time as the Great Plan dictates that Armageddon begins anew, we are under a ceasefire."

"Angels, remember that each one of you is a representative of your organization, and we expect you to behave as such."

"Demonzzz, if you fuck up, you will answer to me personally. Got that?"

The location, a field a little ways south of London, near the town of Leatherhead, was at first glance not very impressive at all. Nothing at all like Megiddo, with its dusty ancient ruins and verdant avocado groves under the blazing desert sun. No, this was just a nondescript stretch of rather lackluster grass, neither lush nor desolate. It was bounded on the east side by a river, beyond which lay a public golf course, and on the west by a row of identical, bland suburban houses. There was a small, wooden structure, which served as a boathouse in the summer months, in the northeast corner. To the north, out of sight beyond a low hill, was the M25, with its low, constant Doppler hum of traffic and evil, a barely-audible yet irritating buzz that set one's teeth on edge. To the south, just visible above the tree line, was the tall stone spire of a C of E church that radiated a faint aura of holy energy, like the perpetual echo of bells in the back of one's brain. The net effect of these two opposing forces was exactly neutral, which was what made this unassuming field one of very few locations on Earth that both sides had been able to agree upon.

The invitation for the day's event, which had clearly been made using a generic PowerPoint template by some hapless intern, had stated, in a bold, somewhat menacing font, _COME DRESSED FOR FUN!!!_ , with a parenthetical _(sportswear)_ in fine print beneath. (There had been no request for an RSVP. One did not decline invitations from Heaven or Hell. One especially did not decline joint invitations from both Heaven and Hell.)

Therefore, the Angelic and Demonic hosts were, each in their own way, wearing what they deemed to be sportswear.

Uriel was resplendent in galaxy-printed yoga tights and matching sports bra, delicately swirled and spattered with gold. Sandalphon was sporting the same camel-colored coat and tan trousers that he generally wore to the office, but had paired them with a pair of chunky white sneakers with Velcro fastenings. Michael had chosen a pale blue, tailored polo shirt, with the collar popped up so stiffly that there was no way it could have stayed put without a miracle or two, slim, cropped beige trousers, and crisp white canvas tennis shoes.

On the Hell side, Dagon was dressed in a salmon pink velour tracksuit with the word _FISHY_ picked out in sparkly rhinestones across the bum. Hastur and Ligur were covered in enough grime that nobody could be quite certain what lay beneath the centuries-old strata of dirt; their garments could very well have once been some sort of ratty tracksuits, but no one was particularly eager to get close enough to check. Three Erics were present, each wearing a pair of extremely-sought-after, limited edition black-and-neon sneakers for which they'd stood in line for three days[5].

Invitations had been extended to all of the denizens of Heaven and Hell who ranked at middle management or above, although a promising intern or three[6] had also been invited in a baldly obvious attempt at inclusivity (and also because the executive teams always needed someone around to fetch and carry things). There had been a great deal of back and forth about whether or not to invite the Earth Representatives: on the one hand, they'd agreed, informally, to leave them alone, but, on the other hand, they were wary of upsetting them by excluding them from an event that was being held practically in their backyard. Aziraphale and Crowley _were_ both still on the respective payrolls of Heaven and Hell, after all, even if they no longer had any assignments or accountability to speak of. Gabriel had been in favor of inviting them, Beelzebub against. Beelzebub's position had been that being _left alone_ meant not being forced to attend mandatory corporate training sessions. Gabriel's counterargument had been that it was an _honor_ to be invited to rub shoulders with the executive teams of their respective organizations. Eventually, Beelzebub had given in, mostly because Gabriel could be like a dog with a bone once he'd fixated on certain ideas, usually the ones having to do with his own importance. Besides, the constant stream of memos arriving in their office from his had gone from being merely extremely annoying to a legitimate occupational hazard: Gabriel's memos always smelled like his aftershave, an aggressively clean, minty, piney scent[7] that made both them and their flies woozy.

Aziraphale and Crowley themselves would have very much preferred not to have been invited, but nobody had bothered to consult them. (They were being _left alone_ , after all.) And so here they were, reluctantly sidling in at the back of the crowd of angels and demons gathered on the damp grass.

They'd very nearly been late, since Crowley had declared that he would rather discorporate a hundred times over than take the designated shuttle bus from the Heaven and Hell office building in the City to Leatherhead. He'd confidently told Aziraphale that the drive would take no more than forty-five minutes _tops_ , so there was no bloody reason in Heaven or Hell that the coach needed to leave at eight a.m. for a ten a.m. arrival, but he'd neglected to take into account the fact that some of that distance would have to be traversed on the M25. They'd been further delayed by Aziraphale's insistence on stopping for a pastry at a darling little French bakery that just so happened to be on their route out of the city.

Aziraphale, for his part, had figured that the relative amount of nausea he'd experience on a double-decker motorcoach clunking and screeching its way slowly through London traffic was approximately the same as that of a typical ride in Crowley's Bentley. However, once he took into account the fact that the motorcoach would be full of his coworkers, choosing instead to ride along with his favorite being in all the world was really a no-brainer, even given the dubious nature of Crowley's driving.

Their tardiness might have been a blessing (or a curse, depending on who you were) in disguise though, since they'd missed the half hour of awkward mingling before the official start of the event.

Crowley did not believe, on a sartorial level, in sportswear, and so he was wearing his usual attire: a slim black blazer, charcoal henley, and jeans so tight that he could barely walk, let alone do anything remotely resembling sports. (Crowley did actually own one single item of sporty – or, sporty-adjacent, at least – clothing, an oversized, well-worn, grey sweatshirt with a cavernous hood, which he only wore while slouching around his flat on Golden Girls-marathon evenings. Nobody, not even Aziraphale ( _especially_ not Aziraphale), had ever seen him in it.) He was also wearing his usual slick snakeskin boots. Crowley did not as a rule wear trainers, not since a very poorly-advised snakeskin high-top sneaker phase in the 1980s that was never to be spoken of. In any case, these particular boots fit like a second skin[8] and were more comfortable than trainers anyway.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, was decked out in head-to-toe sportwear, if by sports one meant an Edwardian-era tennis match. He was dressed in an ivory sweater with green stripes decorating the cuffs, neckline, and hem, paired with matching ivory flannel trousers and white tennis shoes. Crowley had been having extremely undemonic thoughts all morning about that sweater and the way it clung distractingly to Aziraphale's chest and stretched over the gentle swell of his stomach.

He was distracted from yet another sidelong glance at the blasted sweater by Gabriel, who was blowing his whistle to get everyone's attention.

"Now, I hope you're all ready for some big fun! Who's up for some trust falls!?!"

Aziraphale winced.

"It could be worse," murmured Crowley, under his breath. "Rumor has it that Beelzebub was gunning for paintball."

Aziraphale shuddered, both at the pun and at the idea of paintball, and reflexively glanced down at his own shoulder.

"The _least_ they could have done," he said, a bit peevishly, "was to get the name of this ridiculous event right. It's a _sports day_ here in the UK. Just where do they think we are, the States?"

"You know how they are, Angel. All humans are the same to them."

"I know. But still, a bare minimum of respect would have been nice. And who schedules an outdoor event in _December_? In _England_ , no less."

(It wasn't raining at least, which was probably down to a miracle or two, although it was overcast with a pervasive, damp chill, because there was only so much miracles could accomplish in the face of the unstoppable force that was British weather.)

He turned his attention, with a resigned sigh, back to the front, where Gabriel had been prattling on about the necessity of learning to trust one's colleagues and how _there was no I in team_.

"Now, Lord Beelzebub and I will demonstrate the trust fall."

Gabriel grinned broadly, said "ready or not, here I come" to the air, spread his arms wide like a street preacher, let himself fall backwards –

– and hit the ground with a dull thud, flat on his back.

"Oopzzz," drawled Beelzebub, looking down at him and sounding not at all sorry. "Guess I wasn't ready. You should have counted down."

Crowley had been daydreaming about falling into Aziraphale's arms (he trusted Aziraphale with his life, even if he hadn't ever said it aloud, even if he was fundamentally opposed to the entire concept of trust falls), but it did not appear that he would have the chance, because Beelzebub looked annoyed enough to put a stop to the whole exercise before it began.

They took a step forward and very slowly, very deliberately, lifted one heavy booted foot and set it on Gabriel's chest, right over where his heart would have been, had he bothered with the internal workings of a human corporation. He looked up; violet eyes met angry ice-blue ones. 

"There will be No. More. Falling. Got that?"

Gabriel's tracksuit was of the highest quality cashmere, soft as a lamb's belly. It draped beautifully, in the way that only obscenely expensive fabrics can, and hid absolutely nothing. Apparently he _had_ bothered with _some_ aspects of human biology.

"Gotcha, gotcha," he mumbled, sounding dazed. He held his hands up in a gesture that was half placating, half _help me up_. Beelzebub rolled their eyes, removed their foot from his chest, and stomped away toward the boathouse at the far end of the field.

Gabriel rolled over hastily and scrambled to his feet. He clapped his hands loudly.

"Okay everybody! Take five! The Lord of the Flies and I need to have an emergency planning meeting right now _._ To make sure we're both on the same page."

He blew his whistle, for no apparent reason, and stormed off in the direction that Beelzebub had gone. There was a large, wet, grass-and-mud stain on his backside.

"Ouch," observed Crowley with satisfaction, "that's not coming out without some _serious_ miracle action."

They took a lot longer than five. Not that anyone was complaining. Aziraphale and Crowley took the time to have an impromptu picnic, retrieving Aziraphale's emergency shortbread tin and Crowley's emergency wine from the Bentley. The latter was in a thermos that elicited suspicious glares and full-body shudders from Hastur and Ligur, even though anyone with eyes could have told them that it was an entirely different and completely innocuous tartan. 

The Erics actually attempted to perform trust falls, although with only very marginal success, since the combination of two fallers and one catcher was not exactly ideal. (It did not occur to them to try the opposite.) Michael produced a manila accordion file from somewhere, along with a gold highlighter, and began going over budget reports. Hastur and Ligur wandered off toward the river that separated the field and the neighboring public golf course, where Hastur had discovered some new sort of egg, which was crunchy and delicious.

This relative peace was interrupted by several shrill blasts of Gabriel's whistle and a good deal of angry buzzing. Harder to ignore were the very large, very agitated swarm of flies that rose up from the boathouse in a dense, swirly mass, momentarily casting an ominous shadow over the field before it dissipated all at once, in a sudden burst, into a million individual insects, and something that sounded like a tuba but was probably just an overenthusiastic trumpet.

By the time Gabriel and Beelzebub eventually returned, the emergency shortbread had all been consumed, Michael had reviewed three reports, and Ligur had wandered back from the river with a half-eaten golf ball in hand. The sun had even come out, if only briefly. Everyone was in a far better mood. It was a win-win situation all around.

"Our next activity," announced Gabriel, "will be the egg-and-spoon relay race!"

Beelzebub gestured to one of the Erics, who retrieved two large black duffle bags from behind a bush. One of them made a crunching noise, the other a jingling one, when he set them down.

Beelzebub bent to unzip one of the bags, and frowned. Inside was a large quantity of eggshells, all carefully cracked open, with no whites or yolks in sight. They turned to the other bag, fishing out the handles of several metal spoons, conspicuously lacking in bowls and looking like they had been gnawed upon.

"It appearzzz," they buzzed in irritation, "that someone has eaten all the eggzzz. And gotten a good start on the spoonzzz."

Everyone turned immediately to glare at Hastur and Ligur.

"It weren't us!" protested Ligur indignantly. "We only eat _free-range_ eggs." He gestured toward the river and the golf course.

"Besides," added Hastur, " _we_ wouldn't have wasted all those tasty, crunchy shells."

This logic was, unfortunately, impeccable. Everyone was forced to admit that Hastur and Ligur were probably not the culprits, for once.

Beelzebub thrust the two bags full of eggshells and mangled spoons back at Eric, who jumped a foot in the air, and snarled, "Get rid of thezzze. I don't care what you do with them, just get them out of my sight."

Eric's relief was obvious on his face. Beelzebub was apparently not nearly so fond of discorporating the messenger as Hastur was. He grabbed the bags and practically ran to the river, where he unceremoniously emptied both of them into the water.

With all the underlying energy from the multitude of angelic and demonic presences in the field, nobody noticed two tiny miracles. One, of a demonic flavor, redistributed the discarded eggshells under the trees and bushes along the banks of the river, where they would serve as fertilizer. The second, angelic one sent the various twisted remnants of silverware to the storage shed of a local sculptor, who would be pleasantly surprised the next day to find that their stock of scrap metal had doubled overnight.

The scattered atoms of Pollution that had been hovering hopefully around the area sighed and blew away on a sudden breeze.

Crowley let his gaze drift away from the river. As he glanced back toward the group of angels and demons, he noticed something that caused a delighted smirk to appear on his face. Nudging Aziraphale with his elbow, he raised one eyebrow and tipped his head surreptitiously toward Sandalphon, who was standing with his arms folded in front of him, glowering at the demons, completely unaware that there was a distinct bright yellow smear on the side of his chin. Aziraphale made an inelegant, choked-off, sputtering sound, and clapped a hand to his mouth.

Gabriel seemed to have noticed the stain on Sandalphon's face at the same time, because he suddenly stopped demanding that whatever demon had done the deed step forward and take responsibility for their actions. Instead, he cleared his throat loudly and began emphatically waving a piece of paper around. 

"Well! Just a tiny hiccup, no harm, no foul! Good thing I had one of the interns draw up a list of _Fifteen field day activities_ before we left. Always have a contingency plan, is what I say! We'll just move on to the next item on the agenda, shall we? Here we go. This looks promising! The water balloon toss!"

Beelzebub glared at him.

"We discussed this earlier, Gabriel. Water balloons violate the terms of the ceasefire."

"Oh, right. Too close to holy water grenades. Well, how about this then? Item number seven: wet pants relay race."

Crowley snickered from the back of the crowd.

"Err, Gabriel," called Aziraphale, "I think you mean trousers."

"What?"

"They call them trousers here in the UK. Here, "pants" means _under_ pants."

Gabriel merely looked confused. "Underpants?" he said blankly.

"Yes. You know. Boxer shorts. Briefs. Boxer briefs— oh good Lord. You don't—you're not…"

Next to Gabriel, Beelzebub had a knowing smirk on their face. Next to Aziraphale, Crowley couldn't seem to decide whether he wanted to laugh or vomit.

Luckily, he was saved from having to make that decision by Michael, who said flatly, "That is a _terrible_ idea, Gabriel. No."

"All right, all right. We've got to have a race though. It's not Field Day without a race! What about the three-legged race? No eggs or wet pants."

Neither Beelzebub nor Michael had any strenuous objections to this idea. Enthusiasm levels among the audience were low, but Gabriel seemed unfazed, if he'd even noticed the grumbling at all. With a gesture, a length of glowing, violet cord appeared in his hand. He held it out to Beelzebub.

"In your dreams, Archangel," they muttered darkly, and took a large step away.

"Ahh, Lord Beelzebub and I will be the umpires," said Gabriel hastily. "No cheating! That means no miracles, of either sort."

"Refereezzz, you mean. Umpires are for baseball. Anyway, I prefer judge. And jury. And executioner."

"Whatever. As I was saying, three strikes and you're out!"

Gabriel blew his whistle three times in rapid succession. Everyone covered their ears. On the last blast, purple lightning crackled in the sky, frying a small tree on the riverbank.

From the crowd came a high-pitched wail of despair, and someone shrieked, "Noooo! There goes our security deposit!" There were disgruntled murmurs from the Accounting Department contingents on both sides about insurance claims and paperwork. Beelzebub rolled their eyes, stuck the middle finger of one hand out at Gabriel, and gestured with the other, restoring the tree to its former unimpressive (but unscorched) glory.

Gabriel instructed everyone to "grab a buddy" for the race. As these sorts of things always went, despite strong exhortations to choose someone from the other side, the majority of the teams consisted of two angels or two demons. Hastur and Ligur immediately strapped themselves together with what appeared to be a long, stretchy strip of sticky, bright orange tape that Ligur produced from one of the many interior pockets of his coat. (Nobody called them out for ignoring the brief, because nobody, angel or demon alike, wanted to be tied up with Hastur, who smelled like poo.)

Michael excused herself to take an urgent call. She was _terribly sorry_ , but it appeared that it would take some time to sort out the issue, so she had no choice but to reluctantly drop out of the race.

(Who this call could possibly have been from remained a mystery. The other members of Heaven's executive team were all right here, as was the Back Channel, who was currently picking bits of golf ball out of his molars. Yes, there were still plenty of office grunts and paper pushers hard at work back Upstairs, but not a single one of them had the guts to call Michael on her private line.)

Two of the three Erics immediately paired off as well, leaving their triplet, partnerless and forlorn, to protest vehemently, "Guys, guys! How is this fair? I can't believe you'd do this to me! I thought we did _everything_ together!"

The odd-Eric-out was making hopeful, beseeching eyes in Crowley's direction, so he grabbed Aziraphale's arm before he could second-guess himself. 

"Sorry!" he said, too loudly, "I'm taken!"

Eric looked crestfallen but not surprised. Aziraphale, on the other hand, startled at the touch.

"Are… are you sure this is a good idea, Crowley?"

Crowley tried to sound confident, to not let Aziraphale's hesitation affect him.

"Sure, Angel. Course it is. C'mon, look at them." He waved a hand at the assorted angels and demons milling around and resolutely ignoring one another. Sandalphon loomed[9] off to one side, digging at his gums with a toothpick. Hastur and Ligur lurked off to the other, spitting little bits of macerated rubber and plastic into the grass. "Tell me with a straight face you'd rather be paired up with any one of _them_."

"Ah, you do rather have a point there. Very well. But I want it on record that I am opposed to this entire undertaking. A three-legged race, really? We are ageless beings, not children."

The two Erics, who were now tied together, seemed to be having a shoving match with one another. One or the other inevitably looked surprised when his partner fell over and took him along for the ride.

"Well, that last part's debatable. But you'll hear no objection from me about the rest of it. Team building exercises. Great big load of rubbish, if you ask me."

Aziraphale sighed. "I suppose if we must do this, then let's get it over with. We'll need something to tie our legs together. Do you have any rope in your pockets by any chance?"

"No." He could barely fit the ends of his fingers into the pockets of his trousers, much less any rope. "Could miracle some up."

"Gabriel said no miracles."

He was about to respond with a heartfelt " _sod Gabriel and his sodding rules_ ," when he felt a gentle tug at his neck. Aziraphale had the end of his metallic-mesh tie in one hand, and was looking at it contemplatively.

"Would you mind if we used this?"

"Sss-sure. I guess."

Crowley watched, wide-eyed, as Aziraphale's clever fingers picked at the knot, loosening it and working it free. If he'd tied it tighter that morning, instead of in his customary low, insouciant loop, those fingers would right now be brushing up against the hollow of his throat instead of empty air. (On the other hand, it was probably good that he had not, because he had a suspicion that Aziraphale's hand touching the bare skin of his neck would be sufficient to cause him to discorporate immediately.) The tie slithered softly against the back of his neck as Aziraphale pulled it free.

They sat down in the grass beside each other, with knees bent and feet close together. Aziraphale looped the tie around his left ankle and Crowley's right, pressing his index finger to the spot where the two ends crossed to hold it in place. The other fingers of his hand rested gently against Crowley's boot, right at the divot where foot met ankle. It might have been his imagination (which was currently in overdrive), but it seemed almost as though Aziraphale's hand was moving slightly, in a sort of gentle petting motion. Nobody had ever touched him there before. It was glorious; he wanted to arch his foot up into the touch and purr, never mind that snakes did not purr.

That was, until Aziraphale somehow managed to stroke right across a horrendously ticklish spot on Crowley's foot.

How long did it take for an angel to tie a simple knot anyway? The tickle was steadily growing stronger, traveling up his leg and into his hip until it was nearly unbearable and entirely impossible to ignore. He twitched involuntarily and jerked his foot away. It was only due to pure chance that he did not kick Aziraphale in the chin or chest.

Aziraphale, who had apparently finished tying the knot some time ago, flinched and sucked in his breath in surprise as Crowley's motion yanked his own foot along with it.

"Is everything all right, dear? Did I make it too tight?"

"That _tickles_."

"I'm sorry." Aziraphale looked down at Crowley's boot with a mixture of confusion and embarrassment. His cheeks were rather pink. "I wasn't thinking. I should have asked before I touched your… ah… your footwear?"

"It's—it's fine, Angel. Just … warn a demon first next time, will you?"

"I will. I apologize again. Shall we try to stand up now, do you think?"

It wasn't pretty, and Crowley found himself clutching at Aziraphale's arm in between flailing his limbs wildly, but eventually they managed to struggle upright.

Aziraphale's entire leg was pressed up against Crowley's, and it was warm, so warm, and just a little bit yielding and soft. There was a particular sort of tingly feeling that tended to make itself known whenever they happened to brush shoulders while sitting side by side on the couch in Aziraphale's backroom, or when their hands touched when passing a bottle of wine back and forth. This felt similar, only magnified a thousand-fold.

They hobbled their way slowly to the starting line, which was at the base of a hill. (Truthfully, calling it a hill was extremely generous. It was more like a knoll or a mound, just a gentle slope really. But it seemed impossibly steep when one was trying to traverse it while tied up with one's dearest adversary and deepest desire.)

"This is worse than that time back in Babylon when we had too much wine and decided it was a good idea to walk along the top of the floodwall on the banks of the Euphrates," complained Crowley.

"That was _your_ idea, as I recall. And we wouldn't have both fallen in if you hadn't insisted on turning into a snake mid-step."

"Balance is better that way[10]. No damn legs to worry about."

(Crowley was lying, of course. The real reason, which remained unconfessed, was that Aziraphale had been leaning into him, all tipsy and rosy and happy, and it had been a _lot._ Crowley had had a tendency in those early days to involuntarily turn into a snake when things got to be too much. He hadn't had quite so much experience in angel-related self-control back then as he did now.)

"For _you_ maybe. _I_ was leaning on your arm, when suddenly you had no arms."

"Aha! There you go! It was _your_ fault we fell in the river!"

Aziraphale blushed. (It was true, not that he would admit it, that he _had_ perhaps been leaning a bit more heavily on Crowley's arm than he'd needed to all those millennia ago, tipping himself drunkenly into his side. It was also true that he could have sobered himself up, and Crowley would have followed suit, at any time, but had chosen not to. It had seemed a good idea at the time.)

"It was _absolutely_ _not_ my fault!"

"It _was._ Come to think of it, I could do that now. Turn into a snake. Would probably make this easier."

"Crowley! No! That would be cheating! Angels don't _cheat._ It's a three-legged race, dear, not three legs-or-tails."

"Oh, no, of _course_ you don't cheat. You always follow the letter of the law. But there's always a loophole."

"Well, I can't help it if the laws are ambiguous," sniffed Aziraphale. "That's on whoever wrote them."

"Well, find a bloody loophole then so we don't have to do this!"

"Oh, come on. It can't be that hard. Humans do it all the time. Just… one foot in front of the other, right? And no turning into a snake. Promise me."

"All right, all right, fine, I promise."

The ear-splitting shriek of Gabriel's whistle signaled the beginning of the race. Around them, various pairs of angels and demons began struggling up the slope, some with a good deal more grace than others.

Hastur and Ligur clumped up the incline with little elegance but surprising efficiency. They'd spent a long time lurking together and knew how not to get in each other's way, and it showed.

Dagon's rhinestones and Uriel's golden embellishments gleamed and winked in the sun; the silken cord binding them together shimmered like iridescent scales. It was mesmerizing to watch, like the play of light on water. They looked like two beings who were used to moving in tandem, smoothly and gracefully, despite being laced together from hip to heel with a series of intricate knots.

The paired Erics, despite being identically matched in terms of leg length and stride and most likely sharing a brain, were doing surprisingly badly. They seemed shaken, perhaps, that the third Eric seemed to be having a ball with the partner he'd eventually ended up with, a low-level manager from the Miracle Accounting department Upstairs named Zakariel. Zakariel, for their part, had initially been none-too-enthusiastic about the idea of a demon partner, but had quickly decided that it could have been much, much worse. (As far as demons went, Eric was pretty unobjectionable. He did, after all, try to emulate Crowley in many ways, including his fastidious devotion to personal hygiene, rather than the more traditional slime-and-maggots approach favored by Hastur and his ilk.) Zakariel was even, to their surprise, enjoying themself. They found themself laughing so hard at Eric's impressions of their respective bosses that they would have fallen over had Eric not steadied them, and were currently wondering whether it would be out of line to invite him for an afternoon of hoverboarding one of these days.

Crowley didn't turn into a snake, because he'd promised Aziraphale he wouldn't, but it was a near thing.

For one thing, it was a challenge walking in trousers this tight at the best of times, and that was when he only had his own body to worry about, without a whole entire, very distractingly warm, angel attached to his right leg. For another, it was really hard to look cool while simultaneously trying not to fall on one's face or combust. His normal way of sauntering involved rather a lot of swingy hip movement, which in their current situation meant that he was bumping into Aziraphale's waist, hip, and thigh with every step. It didn't help that apparently Aziraphale was wiggling his bum a little bit when he walked; perhaps it helped with balance. The ticklish nerve in Crowley's hip twitched, sensitive and overstimulated. He also had no idea what to do with his right arm, which was currently stuck out awkwardly to the front, between their bodies. He felt awkward and off-kilter, like a marionette with one string cut.

He attempted to lean heavily to the left, in order to open up some space between them and reduce the amount of contact between their bodies. This left him feeling bereft and craving Aziraphale's warmth, but also slightly less overwhelmed. The relief was short-lived, however, as Aziraphale clutched at him, pulling him back upright and against him with an arm around his waist. Their joint center of balance teetered and shifted and swayed.

"I think it's easier," Aziraphale said, a bit breathlessly, "if we try to stay close together. We wouldn't want to go all topsy-turvy."

"That wanker Gabriel, you know he made this course uphill on purpose[12]. 'S downright evil, it is."

"Let's not exaggerate, dear. It's just a bit of a nuisance, really."

"Lisssten. I'm a demon, I'm _actually_ evil, by _definition_ , and _I_ wouldn't have done that."

An argument could have been made that, by that same logic, Gabriel, being an angel, was by definition (or by job description at the very least) _not evil,_ but Aziraphale did not make it. He merely shrugged and let the matter drop.

Aziraphale's shrug had the unintended effect of pushing his shoulder and upper body up against Crowley's. He also hadn't removed his arm from around Crowley's waist, and their thighs and hips were pressed tightly against each other as a result.

This was _torture._ If this kept up, Crowley was going to do something utterly undemonic, like nuzzle his face into the crook of Aziraphale's neck, and Aziraphale would probably be _horrified._ He took an enormous, swinging step with his free leg. Some momentum couldn't hurt. The faster they got to the end of this race, the better.

Unfortunately, he'd forgotten to apprise his counterpart of this decision.

To be fair, Aziraphale was currently distracted by problems of a similar nature. Crowley's leg was _warm_ , and he was fighting an immensely strong urge to press himself even more tightly up against it, like a reptile on a sun-warmed rock. And Crowley's hipbones were sharp, in a delightful but utterly distracting way, pushing insistently into the soft flesh of his own waist. He'd always found the way Crowley walked to be both ridiculous and compelling, and it was doubly so when he could _feel_ it with every step. He'd even found himself wiggling a little in response, but had managed to convince himself that it was subtle enough that Crowley wouldn't notice.

When Crowley took a large step, Aziraphale was not at all expecting to be yanked forward so suddenly. Instinctively, he planted his feet and threw himself backward, using his body as a counterweight the way he'd learned in combat training back in Heaven. Crowley's body, however, was propelled in two opposing directions by the forward momentum of his stride and Aziraphale's desperate overcorrection. He yelped and toppled over to one side in a wild mess of limbs, knocking Aziraphale over in turn, and then there was nothing for it but to go tumbling arse-over-teakettle all the way down the hill.

They came to a stop in some sort of shrubbery near the river. Apparently they'd gone down one side of the hill, rather than directly back to the starting line, and were thus shielded from view of the other competitors. Which was good, because Aziraphale had somehow ended up flat on his back in the undergrowth with a very flustered, very disheveled demon sprawled out in a rather compromising position on top of him.

The urge to protect Crowley from the fall had been so natural, so instinctive, that he hadn't even registered it as they'd been rolling down the hill. His arms had come up around Crowley's back, and he'd held him tight, cradled him against his own chest, as they tumbled. He'd even managed to angle it so that he'd been the one to hit the ground first. Crowley had thudded against him a moment later, a soft landing. His face was tucked in the crook of Aziraphale's neck, and there was a single yellow leaf caught in his red hair; it matched the gold of his eyes almost perfectly when he looked up, stunned, a moment later. His sunglasses had been lost somewhere along the way.

They were both unhurt. A little tumble down a slope that barely qualified as a hill wouldn't leave so much as a bruise on an angelic corporation, which was quite a bit sturdier than your standard human body. It wouldn't have harmed a demonic one either. Aziraphale knew this full well, and yet his instinct had still been to protect Crowley from even this insignificant harm.

He felt like the breath had been knocked out of him, all of a sudden, and he didn't think it was from the fall.

"Augghhhhhmph," said Crowley, startling violently. He attempted to bolt upright in a flail of arms and legs, scattering bits of twigs and leaves, and failed spectacularly, dropping back down onto Aziraphale's chest with a sort of deflated thump. He'd forgotten that their legs were still cinched together at the ankle, although the tie had shifted a bit, so that their fronts were pressed together rather than their sides.

A quick glance around assured Aziraphale that they were indeed alone, with a small stand of bushes and part of the hill blocking them from view of the others.

"It looks as though we’ve managed to fall well out of bounds and have almost certainly been disqualified. In which case, I suppose a little miracle wouldn’t hurt," he said, snapping the fingers of the hand that was still resting on Crowley’s back without bothering to lift it first.

Crowley felt a small, thrilling frisson of holy power vibrate through his spine, and then the tie around their ankles vanished[13].

They was no longer anything physically keeping them together, and yet neither of them moved apart. Crowley remained sprawled atop Aziraphale, and Aziraphale’s arm was still curved protectively around Crowley’s back. They left their legs tangled together. Crowley's hand had somehow found its way into Aziraphale's hair, his long fingers carding through the curls, gently teasing out tangles and debris. His eyes were very golden and very wide, just like they had been in Eden, with revelation.

"You caught me," he whispered, "when I fell."

"I'll always catch you," replied Aziraphale, just as softly, "every time."

In the circle of Aziraphale's arms, with Aziraphale in his arms, Crowley knew these words for truth, knew that they'd been true for a long, long time.

There was only one way to respond to that revelation. Crowley kissed Aziraphale. Aziraphale kissed back, his mouth opening, warm and sweet, to the gentle press of Crowley's lips. It didn't matter that they were lying in the dirt underneath a scrubby bush, covered in bits of vegetation. It didn't matter that it was damp and cold. It didn't matter that there was a stone digging into the small of Aziraphale's back, or that the lower branches of the shrub they were under kept snagging in Crowley's hair. It didn't matter that they were supposed to be at a work event.

What mattered was that they were together, really properly together. What mattered was the way a huge smile bloomed, unstoppable and radiant, on Aziraphale's face when they stopped kissing, momentarily, to look, wide-eyed, at one another. What mattered were the tears of joy that shone openly in Crowley's golden eyes. What mattered was how all the jittery tension they'd both felt earlier had all at once transformed into a sweet, thrilling anticipation.

They came back together for another kiss, and another, and another.

A hundred feet to the left, the world, and Field Day, kept spinning on. Distantly, they could hear Gabriel announcing, to halfhearted cheers, that Dagon and Uriel had won the race, and Hastur and Ligur had come second, but _you're all winners in my book!_ (One did not have to be able to see Beelzebub to know that they were rolling their eyes so hard that they were in danger of spraining something[14].) There was some fuss about trophies. Apparently everyone was going to get one, for participation. This seemed, to the winners, to be terribly unfair. Gabriel, the very model of efficiency, ignored these protests and busied himself with organizing everyone into teams for the next event, the tug-of-war, and unilaterally decreeing that Dagon and Uriel, having already won together once, were not allowed to be on the same team for this one[15]. 

Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley would be able to tell you, later, which team had won the tug-of-war, or even who the teams were. By the time they next came up for air, in a dreamy, happy, almost-drunken kind of way, their coworkers had moved on to the next event, which was apparently a Fun Run that was only fun if one was the Archangel Fucking Gabriel.

Nobody noticed for some time that the two Earth Representatives had gone missing. Their absence only became clear when they did not appear to receive their prizes for participation at the end of the day. Gabriel was persuaded to let the matter drop by Beelzebub and Michael, and had to content himself with muttering under his breath about how _some_ people just refused to be team players.

(They might not have been good team players, but they'd _certainly_ built bridges and made connections.)

While everyone else had been halfheartedly jogging around the far end of the field for the Fun Run, Aziraphale and Crowley had made a run for the Bentley, having decided that, as unexpectedly lovely as the day had turned out to be, it could be only be improved by returning to the bookshop, which had all the comforts of home. The bookshop, with its much-loved couch, and possibly the flat above as well, they both agreed, would be a far more comfortable setting for further exploration of their new relationship than anything Field Day could possibly provide[16].

On the way back, Crowley drove like the devil himself, and Aziraphale, for once, did not complain. Even the M25 had not been able to put up much of a fight in the face of their overwhelming desire to be home.

They had six thousand years' worth of kisses to catch up on, after all.

* * *

[1]The Heavenly Workplace Challenge, which promised prizes (but not bragging rights, because pride was a sin) for everyone who managed to log enough steps at their treadmill desks to be the equivalent of "climbing every mountain". Gabriel's grinning mug also adorned the placard in the break room that proclaimed the number of days since the last gross matter incident.return to text

[2]Unless you happened to be an Archangel who is too vain to sweat, or, really, to have pores[3] at all.

[3]Pores are not demonic, despite what marketing materials for beauty products would like you to believe. Those useless, ridiculous-looking, yet oddly satisfying little adhesive strips you stick on your nose to yank the dirt out of your pores were Crowley's invention, though.return to text

[4]That last claim was technically true. Nothing would happen to the _boots_ if you got splashed with holy water while wearing them, but there was a disclaimer in the fine print that the manufacturer was not liable for anything that happened to the _wearer_.return to text

[5]Well, _one_ of them had stood in line at any given time. They'd taken shifts, and then all three had appeared simultaneously when it came time to actually get the sneakers. This had the nefarious side effect of denying numbers 99 and 100 in line their shoes. Both of those people had been upset, to put it mildly; Eric didn't really mind, despite getting punched in the face, because it meant that they'd been able to write the whole thing off as a work expense, checking off both envy and wrath on the form. They'd gotten a double-sin bonus for it, even.return to text

[6]Eric, Eric, and Eric.return to text

[7]It was supposed to smell "clean and manly." But you weren't really supposed to douse yourself in so much of it that the smell pervaded everything you touched.return to text

[8]And perhaps they _were._return to text

[9]Sandalphon was one of those short people who somehow still manage to loom, which is probably why humans tended to depict him as being extremely tall when he really, really was not.return to text

[10]It actually wasn't; it was just harder from the outside to tell the difference between a drunk snake and a sober one[11]. (They're both wiggly; it's a question of degree.)

[11]But if anyone could tell, it was Aziraphale.return to text

[12]He had. It was supposed to build character.return to text

[13]Aziraphale had sent it back to the closet in his flat above the bookshop, where his bow ties normally lived when he wasn’t wearing them. Somehow he had a feeling Crowley wouldn’t mind, and perhaps that ridiculous excuse for a tie of his might even learn a thing or two from its more proper brethren.return to text

[14]Preferably one of Gabriel's body parts.return to text

[15]Gabriel didn’t know it yet, but he'd just ensured himself several months of a horrendously pervasive and elusive fishy smell in his office.return to text

[16]Say, for example, a musty, drafty, out-of-season boathouse.return to text

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic, you can reblog it on tumblr [here](https://moondawntreader.tumblr.com/post/637582475603918848/welcome-to-the-first-annual-heaven-and-hell-field). You can also see the terrible PowerPoint invitation for Field Day there.
> 
> Come visit me [@moondawntreader](https://moondawntreader.tumblr.com)!  
> Please see my [AO3 profile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbloomingcereus/profile) for additional contact info and permissions.


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